Q199 :At times, I get very severe pain in my neck
which needs analgesic tablets to relieve because I suffer from cervical
spondylitis. It happened once or twice in the month of Ramadan that the
pain was so severe that I could not bear it any longer and broke my
fast to take the tablets. Should I still feed one poor person for
breaking my fast? What procedure should I follow if it happens again?
Perhaps I should add that I get such severe pain two or three times a
month.
A199 : It is important that a Muslim should know
enough of Islamic teachings to enable him fulfill his duties in the
proper manner without accidentally invalidating any duty he is
fulfilling. To do this, he needs to study a few Islamic principles and
learn the regulations which govern each of the main duties of Islam,
particularly those which have a practical aspect. There are certain
matters which you can fulfill once you know the Islamic position on
them. Once you learn that it is forbidden to steal, lie, backbite, give
a false testimony, drink intoxicants, you can refrain from doing any of
these vices immediately, without any need to learn anything more
concerning them. It is needless to say that if you undertake a more
detailed study of the Islamic principles, you will be able to
understand how Islam views every aspect of human activity, but that is
not particularly essential to implement such teachings of Islam which
relate to these particular aspects. On the other hand, it is not
enough that you learn that it is your duty to pray, pay zakah, fast or
do the pilgrimage. In each one of these, you have to make a further
study in order to know when or how you have to fulfill any of these
duties. Moreover, you should learn what things to avoid in order not to
render your efforts null and void. How can any Muslim offer a valid
prayer, if he does not know that he has to have ablution before it and
to stand up facing the direction which leads from his spot to the
Ka’aba in Makkah and that he should offer five prayers every day and
that each one of them has its time range during which it must be
offered? How can one fast properly if he does not know that it is
during the month of Ramadan that fasting is a duty, or that he should
start this fasting at dawn and finish at sunset? Fasting in the month
of Ramadan is one of the main Islamic duties. Every Muslim who is able
to do so must fast every day of the month of Ramadan from dawn to dusk,
during which hours he may not eat or drink or have sex with his wife.
Allah knows that people may go through certain conditions when they
cannot fulfill the duties of fasting or when its fulfillment presents
considerable hardship. Therefore, he has allowed people who may have
such conditions not to fast on those days when fasting benetes too
hard, outlining the conditions for doing so, requiring them at the same
time to netpensate by fasting later in the year an equal number of days
to those days of Ramadan during which they could not fast. This means
that the idea of netpensating for non-fasting in Ramadan is acceptable
while such an idea is not acceptable in another major Islamic duty,
namely, prayers. It is not open to any person to decide that he is
unable to offer prayers at this particular time and he will offer it at
a later time. This principle is acceptable in fasting on certain
conditions. Moreover, the netpensation is of duration similar to the
concession. If a person does not fast two days in Ramadan for valid
reasons, he has to netpensate for them by fasting two days [sometime]
later. There is no punishment and no need for doing an additional duty
by way of atonement. The situations which allow or require a Muslim
not to fast during the month of Ramadan are illness, traveling and, for
women only, being pregnant, breast-feeding and having menstrual or
postnatal period. There are certain details for each of these
conditions. When people know about the concession of not fasting when
one is ill or traveling, they assume that the illness must be of the
severe variety and the travel must be of the very tiring variety to
qualify the ill person or the traveler to make use of this concession.
This is not right. Allah has stated this condition in the Qur’an in the
most general of terms. Therefore, any situation which people normally
describe as illness is all that is needed for a person to make use of
Allah’s concession. The only thing required of him is to netpensate
after Ramadan is over by fasting one day for each day of non-fasting in
Ramadan. It is not necessary that those netpensatory days be offered
consecutively. Compensatory fasting may be taken at any time during the
rest of the year until the next month of Ramadan is due. Exemption
from fasting during illness or travel is a concession of which all
Muslims may avail themselves. If they fast, then their fasting is
valid, although it is perhaps more preferable they should avail
themselves of the concession. In the case of a woman in her
menstruation or her postnatal period, non-fasting is mandatory. If she
fasts, her fasting is not acceptable. Indeed, she puts herself in a
difficult position if she does. Compensation by fasting a similar
number of days would still be required in these cases. As for a woman
who is pregnant or who is breast-feeding, she may not fast if she fears
for her health or [for the health of] her baby. I will nete to the
netpensation she has to offer in a little while. My reader asks about
feeding a poor person? This is a netpensation, for not fasting, which
was required of Muslims in the very early days of Islam when fasting
was not obligatory. A Muslim could then choose not to fast, but to feed
a poor person instead. Ever since the second year of the Prophet’s
settlement in Madinah, fasting in the month of Ramadan became
obligatory on all Muslims who are able to undertake this duty. It is no
longer a matter of choice between fasting and feeding a poor person.
However, if a person is in such a condition that makes him unable to
fast in Ramadan and unable to fast later, what can he do? The answer is
that netpensation by feeding a poor person is operative in this case.
For each day of Ramadan, he should give every poor person two meals of
the average type he has in his home normally. He may, if he so wishes,
give the poor person the cost of that meal in cash, according to a
number of eminent scholars. The persons to whom this opinion remains
valid are: 1) a very old man or woman who can no longer bear the
difficulty of fasting from dawn to dusk; 2) a person who is chronically
ill and has little hope of recovery; and 3) a woman who is pregnant or
breast-feeding, particularly one who finds herself pregnant this year,
breast-feeding next year, pregnant again the following year and
breast-feeding the year after that. She is thus in a similar situation
to a person who is chronically ill. In all these cases, netpensation
may be offered by way of feeding a poor person for one day (two meals)
in place of each missed day of fasting. In this condition which my
reader has put to me, this last method of netpensation does not apply.
When he has this pain, which he says he has two or three times each
month, he may go ahead and have his pain killer tablet. What he is
required to do is to fast one day in netpensation for each day of
non-fasting in Ramadan.
Our Dialogue ( Source : Arab News – Jeddah )